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Study shows 28% of console gamers are women (and no one should be surprised)
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The Frag Dolls will destroy you.
A new market research study by the NPD Group revealed that female gamers now make up 28% of the console gaming population. This is right on the heels of the Neilson Company’s study last April that showed almost 50% of PC gamers were women. For anyone who actually plays video games online, both studies were about as surprising as being told that a lot of women drive cars these days. I can only assume that this is being treated as news because it came as a surprise to the NPD Group and to the non-gaming community. Speaking of the non-gaming community, the boost in female console gamers is naturally being attributed to the Wii.
Electronic Arts VP Sharon Knight describes the Wii’s accessibility as being its primary appeal to female gamers. "The Wii levels the playing field. You don't embarrass yourself. You can grab it and right away start having fun. [Wii games] don't require the same investment to learn and to master how to pick up and play [as other consoles' games]." I’m not going to speak for the female gamer population as a whole, but considering that statement was made at the 2007 Women in Games Conference, isn’t it just a little demeaning? It reminds me a little of the 1992 Teen Talk Barbie who told little girls that "math class is tough!" Are we really supposed to believe that female gamers are intimidated by the Xbox 360 and the PS3?
My arch nemesis on “Rock Band Online” is a woman (yes, I have an arch-nemesis…it’s one of the crucial ten steps towards being a full fledged superhero). When it comes to console RPGs, you don’t get much more hardcore than the fans of the “Final Fantasy” series, the majority of whom are women. Try a Google image search for “Final Fantasy cosplay” some time to see their dedication to gaming (but for the love of God, make sure your content filter is on if the kids are around). If you truly want to witness embarrassment (likely your own), sign yourself up for Frag Doll Friday session on Xbox Live. If we’re out at the movies and my wife (who doesn’t play video games at home) sees “Time Crisis” or any other arcade game that involves shooting everything in sight with a plastic gun, it’s on.
In part, the myth that women don’t play video games is perpetuated by the ongoing public quest by developers to come up with the kinds of games that will appeal (translate: sell) to women. If Ubisoft’s “Grey’s Anatomy” game is any indication, women like to play social and dating simulations where the control scheme includes multiple styles of flirting and you can use your Wiimote to flick away “bad thought” bubbles. On the other hand, if sales of the “Grey’s Anatomy” game are any indication, Ubisoft may be a teensy bit off base about what women want in a game. That’s not a slam on “GA,” either. I’ve never seen the show so I’ve got nothing bad to say about. On the other hand, I’m a die-hard “Desperate Housewives” fan, and I wouldn’t play the game that got spewed out under that license if Dana Delany came with it (well, maybe). I don’t believe for a second that female fans of the show preferred the notion of a “Second Life” knock off to the possibilities of a “DH” first person shooter. Edie Britt plus a flamethrower plus Wisteria Lane destructible environments…go with it!
So what kinds of games do women want to play? There are three games I play regularly (meaning they get fired up at least once a week): “Rock Band,” “Left 4 Dead,” and “Age of Conan” (yes, I know it’s PC, not console). Besides the fact that they have all contributed to my ongoing sleep deprivation, these three games have one thing in common: their online populations include a ton of women. The people who study things like gamer demographics would break that fact down as follows: women like to play rhythm games, zombie killin’ first-person-shooters, and online multiplayer role playing games based on the works of Robert E. Howard. Let me break that down more accurately for the gaming companies. Women, like their male gaming counterparts, like to play great games.
It’s been over twenty-five years since my grandmother told my sister that “Chopper Command” wasn’t ladylike. (In my grandmother’s defense, it probably wasn’t so much the video gaming that she found unladylike as it was my sister’s intermittent screams of “Die! Die! Die!”) The idea that gaming is a “boys only” club or that women only play niche and casual games is long past the point of absurdity. Stop trying to figure out what special niche is going to appeal to women and get back to focusing on making great games. If the games are great, both sexes will want to play.
Yes, I'm just now realizing the amount of innuendo in that last line.
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